The University of Johannesburg has emerged as the top university in the Sub-Saharan Africa University Rankings 2024, overtaking the University of the Witwatersrand.
The University of Pretoria secured the second position, with South African universities occupying the top three spots.
The rankings, released by Times Higher Education, assessed universities based on their teaching, research, and impact.
The methodology has been updated to enable better comparison of universities, with metrics grouped into five pillars: resources and finance, access and fairness, student engagement, ethical leadership, and Africa impact.
Ghana has made significant strides, with the University of Ghana rising from 17th to 5th place.
Ashesi University maintained its position at number nine. Ghanaian universities excelled in ethical leadership, and achieved the highest average score for this pillar among countries with at least 10 ranked institutions.
Kenya also showed improvement, with the University of Embu ranking 16th. Kenyan universities scored well for the quality of their courses, based on student feedback.
However, they faced challenges in access and fairness metrics, as well as the percentage of first-generation and low-income students.
Teboho Moja, professor of higher education at New York University, noted that Ghana and Kenya have made deliberate efforts to support their flagship universities.
However, she noted that the region’s universities face numerous challenges, including an ageing professoriate, high demand for higher education, and inadequate funding.
According to Moja, “An ageing professoriate, as well as high demand for higher education, leads to institutions admitting more students, but this is not matched by the level of funding they receive.
“As a result, quality is impacted and research production is challenged as lecturers have to teach big classes and have very demanding teaching schedules that leave no time for research production.”
